Encounter between East and West in the Arabic Novels (1935-1966)

Abstract

From 30s of 20th century, the meeting of east and west became one of the main issues of the Arabic novels, where the problem of cultural identity of main character resulting from the meeting of two cultures was stated. Cultural markers denoting two spaces found in the texts emphasize ambivalent attitude of the authors to western civilization, being, on one hand, the enemy and conqueror and on the other – the source of education and symbol of free life.

In the colonialism epoch, meeting of two absolutely different worlds and motif of confrontation of the cultures was widely reflected in the literary texts. Both, the European and eastern (Arabic) literary discourse (where the theme of east-west meeting is prominent), actually, results from the western colonial policies that have created the entire system: how the Europe viewed the Arabic world and how it created certain stereotypes in relation to it. This, naturally, was followed by the response from the east and the requirement of emphasizing identity became stronger. Hence, the east has developed certain stereotypes about the western civilization as well. Moreover, some Arabic literary texts of 20th century became some kind of weapon for revenge in the postcolonial epoch.

The paper is intended, to cover Arabic novels written in 30s – 60s of 20th century focused on the issue of meeting of eastern and western cultures. In this context, the famous novels of colonialism and post-colonialism period, such as: Taha Husayn’s “Adib” (1935), Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s “A bird from the East” (1938), Dhu al-Nun Ayyub’s „Doctor Ibrahim“ (1939), Yahya Haqqi’s “The Lamp of Um Hashim” (1944), Suhayl Idris’s “Latin Quarter” (1954) and Tayeb Salih’s “Season of Migration to the North” (1966) are discussed. The research was conducted based on the key principles of comparative literary studies, imagology. Goal of our work is to identify the cultural markers, auto- and hetero-images in the literary texts.